Reminder of the Captain Jim tragedy

 On January 29, 2019 the service boat Captain Jim sank off Eastern Passage. The boat's skipper and a cargo surveyor were able to escape to a raft, but the boat's deckhand was apparently trapped below and died. The two survivors were picked up by the pilot boat, and the deckhand's body was recovered by navy divers. The boat itself was raised and broken up.

The Captain Jim was returning from a cargo sampling trip to a tanker anchored off Halifax. At the tine there were two such tankers, Star I bound for Imperial Oil and Elka Hercules bound for Irving Oil.

In one of those strange coincidences, Elka Hercules is in Halifax again two years later, and berthed at Irving Oil's Woodside terminal.

Elka Hercules arrived from Saint John, NB, January 28 and is pictured this morning January 29 discharging its remaining cargo at Irving Oil's Woodside Terminal.

Elka Hercules was built in 2002 by Brodosplit in Split Croatia, measuring 27,539 gt and 44,481 dwt. It is operated by European Product Carriers.

Also in Halifax, but anchored inside the harbour is  a tanker from Antwerp destined for Imperial Oil.  High Trust is operated by one of the d'Amico companies, part of the Societa d,Amico di Naigazione S.p.A., which also operates tankers and bulk carriers. It was built in 2016 by Hyundai Vinaship Shipyard Co in Ninh Hoa, Vietnam and measures 29,935 gt, 49,990 dwt.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is investigating the loss of the Captain Jim. Initially they stated the investigation would likely take 450 days or 15 months, but no official report has yet been published.

For my posts on the loss of the Captain Jim see:

http://shipfax.blogspot.com/2019/01/search-operation-underway.html

and

http://tugfaxblogspotcom.blogspot.com/2019/01/captain-jim.html

After the Holiday

It was quiet in the harbour for the July1 holiday, but things picked up a bit today.

Irving Oil welcomed the tanker Elka Hercules from Amsterdam. This is the ship's second call in Halifax. It was here January 29 to February 1, also from Amsterdam, with a cargo of refined product. Its visit will be a short one as it has to vacate the berth tomorrow for the arrival of Irving's Acadian.

Elka Hercules unloads at Irving Oil, Woodside as the tug Spitfire III heads to Autoport.

A 2002 product of Brodosplit shipyard in Croatia it is a 27,539gt, 44,481 dwt MidRange tanker. It is part of the European Product Carriers Ltd fleet from Athens, and one of about twenty ships with the "Elka" prefix, several of which have called here recently.

The autocarrier Hoegh London made a brief call at Autoport this morning. This is the ship's first visit to Halifax according to my records. It is on an eastbound routing, so may have loaded export cargo.

Hoegh London has a side ramp positioned well aft. Most autocarriers have them nearer midships.

The pilot boarding door is just forward of the ramp.

Built by Daewoo, Okpo in 2008 it carried the name Alliance Charleston from 2010 to 2013 and flew the US flag as a non-Jones Act vessel. As a ship not built in the US, it was not permitted to trade between US ports, but was eligible for certain preferences in foreign trade, such as US government cargo.
The 68,871 gt, 27,100 dwt ship has a capacity of 7850 CEU.

It was an unusual mid-day arrival for Oceanex Sanderling returning from St.John's. The ship sailed from Halifax on Friday as usual but must have done a quick Sunday turnaround in St.John's to avoid the holiday.

The ship is carrying a large number of Oceanex (blue) 53 foot containers. These are among the few "sea going" 53 footers, as most container ships can't accommodate them in their cellular holds. Therefore most 53 foot containers are not built to IMO sea-going standards, and are restricted to intermodal or RoRo traffic.

Queen Mary 2 made a return call today. With Celebrity Summit overnighting at pier 20, the big ship berthed at pier 22, and had to extend lines across the camber to pier 26 in order to be properly secured.

It is not only container ships that are getting bigger! The port has to accommodate some large cruise ships too, and with three in port today, Insignia had to take the back seat - at pier 27 - in amongst a lot of unsightly commercial port activity. If I were a tourist I would not be impressed.

Queen Mary 2 made its stately way out of Halifax this evening nicely catching the sun on its way to the pilot station. 

To make room for tour boats at the Tall Ships Quay, the yacht Sycara V shifted north to the Salter pier, and appeared to be undergoing some maintenance. There may have been divers working at the bow. Note the hatch doors open at the forepeak.

Elka Hercules at Irving Oil and a digression

The chemical and product tanker  Elka Hercules at Irving Oil Woodside is scheduled to sail early tomorrow morning after discharging cargo from Europe.

The ship has obviously been used to carry corrosive chemicals, if the condition of the hull paint is any indication. Fortunately on this trip it is carrying fuel. The ship is operated by European Product Carriers Ltd, the managing arm of European Navigation Inc of Athens. The company owns about 35 tankers of various sizes, all carrying the "Elka" prefix. This ship is one of the older ones, built in 2002 by Brodospas, Split, Croatia, and measuring 27,539 gt, 44,481 dwt.

Elka Hercules loaded the cargo in Amsterdam and sailed from there January 18,arriving here January 29. Irving Oil has a facility in Amsterdam that stores and blends product from its own refinery in Ireland and other sources.  Irving Oil also refines western Canadian crude oil at its refinery in Saint John,  NB, that is delivered by rail. One has to wonder, if Alberta oil is so vastly underpriced by world standards, how the European oil is competitive. There may be several answers. One might be the limitation of supply. Rail lines can only handle so much traffic, and if Irving has unmet demand, then the cost of the oil becomes secondary. Second is the high cost of refining oil sands crude (even if upgraded) compared to North Sea crude.

Irving Oil also sources overseas crude oil at its Saint John refinery. As far as I am aware none of that oil comes, at least directly, from Venezuela. However now with a virtual embargo on Venezuelan crude, there will be pressure on other crude suppliers for more product.

The Venezuelan situation is a reminder that the Imperial Oil refinery in Dartmouth (now gone) was built to process Venezuelan oil, and at one time Imperial Oil had important ties there.  A fleet of shallow draft tankers transported crude oil from the shallow Lac Maracaibo to Aruba where it was transferred to deep sea tankers. Those tankers came on to the various refineries on the eastern seaboard, including Dartmouth and even as far as Montreal in season. At one time Venezuela was virtually the ony source of crude oil for eastern Canada.

In 1941, while the United States was still neutral, a 236 mile pipeline was built between South Portland, ME and Montreal, alongside the Canadian National Railway's right of way. Tankers were then able to sail up the US east coast, in neutral waters, and discharge without entering the war zone. That was a short lived reprieve as the US entered the Second World War later the same year. However the pipeline continued in use until two years ago. It is now maintained in a "wet" condition to prevent corrosion, but is not used except when there is a disruption in delivery of western oil to Montreal by pipeline. When forest fires hit Fort McMurray two years ago and production was halted, the pipeline was in use for a time.

Talk of reversing the flow to deliver western crude to tidewater has met with public backlash in Maine and Vermont, and many municipalities have expressed their displeasure with non-binding ordinances against "dirty oil". Last summer a judge found in favour of South Portland's municipal ban on western crude. The major objection was pollution from vapour combustion units used to burn off the VOCs used to make tar sands flowable.  Concerns about leaks were also a factor. The case has been appealed to a higher court.

Even so, reversing the flow would be a costly measure involving replacement and reactivation of some pumping stations and replacement of some or all of the pipe itself. There were once three active parallel pipes. A 12 inch pipe was decommissioned in 1982 and an 18 inch pipe in 2011. The remaining pipe is 24 inches in diameter.

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